1
Gone?
She backed up a few steps and then turned and ran, heart in her throat, feet barely touching the carpet as she tore through the upstairs.
He has to be somewhere he has to be somewhere he can't be gone he's hiding, he has to be-
Violet flew down the stairs two at a time and reached the front door, flung it open and ran out into the darkness.
Her bare feet slipped on the icy pavement and she fell to her knees, but hardly felt it. The front gate was up ahead, she grabbed hold of it...and it was locked tight.
Violet shook the bars with all the strength she could summon.
"NO! You stupid...thing! Open!" She gave it a good kick, which only served to hurt her foot badly.
The gate did not open, of course. It was locked with a key, one Violet did not own. Lucafont always locked it on his way out every night. It would be impossible to get out until morning. Violet gave the gate another kick just out of spite.
I could wait here until he comes back, Violet thought as she sat down on the bricks. At first the cold was hardly noticeable, a second thought to the idea-however fruitless-that her son might be returned any moment.
Something wet kissed her shoulder, and Violet looked up. It was starting to snow again. She shivered in her light clothes, smothering a cough in the crook of her arm.
What are you going to do, stupid? Sit out here and freeze to death?
Defeated, she stood and limped back into the house.
Violet sat down on the edge of the kitchen table and wracked her brain for another idea.
Call the police.
She picked up the phone, and stopped.
They would come out. They would look at the house, the backyard and its' smell, Violet's bloody clothes shoved under her bed, and...
She set the phone back down.
What are you going to do? Invent something. Say something. Think of something.
As a child she had believed that there was no problem too large for her to take on, that the answer would come simply because, well, because it would. She was a good person. She was pretty and clever, and...
Now a grown woman, sitting filthy and wet on her own kitchen table, Violet felt that familiar despair washing over her again. If there was a god, it was doubtless he had let them all down. Suddenly feeling a wave of utter hopelessness, she laid her head down in her hands and as usual, forced back her tears.
What was...
She stopped and looked up.
The answer to her prayers suddenly seemed in reach.
Violet almost laughed out loud.
Framed by the darkness of the kitchen window, the Tower beckoned to Violet. Perhaps Deus Ex Machina wasn't dead after all.
The first thing to hit Violet as she stepped inside was the smell. Alcohol, sweat and dead animal left to marinate together over a dozen summers.
She dug in her coat pocket for a handkerchief to clasp over her mouth as she stepped tentatively into the lonely room. The smell didn't improve much as she advanced.
Piles of newspapers lay on top of filthy dishes, old wine bottles and layer after layer of dust.
She forced a window open halfway and flicked away a mouse that tried to bite her hand as she did so. Intent on her task Violet ignored the cold and the stench, and even as the sun began to rise, she sat cross-legged in the dust, poring over endless newspaper clippings, captions and page after page of seemingly pointless scribbling.
The sun did little to warm the tower, and even in the bright light streaming through the window, Violet was shivering.
So far, she had found little to help her but a lone newspaper article, half legible and smeared with spaghetti sauce.
Twin boys found wandering
Police were called to a remote area of Paltryville this morning, after two children were found wandering along the road alone.
They reported being carried out "By the ankles" and claimed they had escaped from their abductors on a stretch of rural highway, but that their sister was unable to escape. Upon further investigation police officers found the children's parents dead in their home, apparently poisoned early the previous evening.
The boys were placed in the care of relatives while the search for the remaining sibling continues.
Funeral services for the children's parents are to be held at-" The rest of the clipping was illegible. Scribbled in fading ink beneath the article was an address.
7262 Aberrant Ave.
The sound of someone at the gate drew Violet's attention. She crawled as best she could to the window, and peeked down.
Lucafont was standing on the walk, staring up at her.
She heard the front gate slam. Violet sat back and closed her eyes, waiting.
"Just what in God's name do you think you're doing?" Lucafont snapped, slamming the doors behind him. Violet ignored him.
"I'm looking for something." She answered, still not sure if she wanted to mention anything about the previous night's events.
"In the tower?" His voice was suspicious, and Violet rolled her eyes.
"He's dead anyway, Luca. It doesn't matter. This does."
"If you're looking for money-" He held out a hook for Violet to grab onto and Violet stood up stiffly, leaning on Lucafont for support. Her legs were asleep, they had been for hours.
"Not money. When you left, you never said goodbye to Nicky?" She asked, though it wasn't really much of a question.
"He was asleep, why does it matter?"
"Nicky's gone." The words sounded strange coming out of her mouth, as if she hadn't yet wrapped her mind around the idea. There was a long wait before Lucafont said anything.
"Gone?"
She sensed something in his voice that made her hesitate. Was it blame? Disbelief?
"I looked everywhere for him." She answered, bristling a little.
"I never said you didn't." Lucafont replied quietly. "If I had known, well...you don't need to hear this now."
"No, finish your sentence. If you knew what?"
"It's not important." He suddenly looked unbelievably uneasy.
"Please tell me?" Violet's voice turned cloying and soft. If there was anything she had learned from spending her entire adult life in love with only one man, it was how to manipulate him. She rested her hand on his shoulder, and leaned forward to whisper in his ear.
"Please?"
At last, Lucafont relented.
"If I had known VFD was coming for your son, I would have done something to stop it. Happy?"
"You knew? You knew and you didn't do anything?" She fought back tears of fury as Lucafont shrugged. "You knew and you didn't even warn me, you stupid...stupid crippled freak!"
She shoved him hard. Twice her weight, Lucafont shoved back and pinned her helpless, one of his hooks catching around her long hair, the other pressing down on her throat.
"I didn't mean it, I'm sorry," Violet stammered, suddenly aware of what she had done. "I'm sorry, just don't..."
He pushed her harder. Violet swallowed a cry of pain as the sharp edge of the table dug into the small of her back.
"Don't test me, Violet. I might have seen you naked a dozen times, that doesn't mean I won't put a hook through your guts, got it?"
Violet managed a nod, and Lucafont dropped her.
There was a long moment of silence as Violet tried to catch her breath, and Lucafont rummaged through the boxes and trash on the table. After some digging, he came up with a dusty bottle of wine cradled in his hooks. Violet took it from him.
"I don't know much about VFD." She admitted. "Have a drink and we'll figure something out." She said, pouring the wine into the two glasses that looked least filthy.
"Olaf must have told you something about them."
Violet shrugged. "He didn't talk much about work. All I ever heard him say was how they were always interfering in his plans."
"Something like that." Lucafont said. "They were at each other's throats, to tell you the truth."
"Do you think my son is even alive?"
Lucafont nodded. "I'm sure. They wouldn't bother with kidnapping if they just wanted to kill him."
"Do you think we can get him back?" Violet asked, taking a hesitant sip of her wine. It was positively stomach turning.
"Possible. But I'm not going to help you, if that's what you're asking."
"But you know more about these people, you can help find him!" Violet protested.
"It's not that simple, Violet. You want me to single handedly overthrow VFD, rescue your son and probably a thousand other children, return them all to their rightful homes when most of their parents aren't even living..."
Lucafont gulped down the alcohol in one swallow, and motioned Violet to pour him another.
"They won't hurt him, Violet. He'll have anything his heart ever desires."
"I won't abandon my son, and I won't leave him to be cared for by strangers." Violet said.
Lucafont snorted.
"When he was born I recall you having a different attitude about the whole thing. I don't see what's changed from then until now."
"It was different." Violet replied, finishing off her glass of the miserable tasting stuff. "I'd been in labor damn near two days, you and Olaf wouldn't take me to a hospital. I didn't mean anything I said at that point."
"Fine. You go track down Nikolai, bring him back here. Spend whatever's left of your fortune to find a baby you didn't want, just to prove a point to yourself. It'll only be another week before someone else kidnaps him, so enjoy it, I'm leaving. I'm tired of trying to argue anything through your dense skull." Lucafont threw a rusty set of keys down on the table. "Good luck."
With that said he stood up and stormed out, leaving Violet slightly stunned, rubbing her bruised throat. She watched him leave from the window.
So he's gone too now.
With little else to do, Violet picked up the wine glasses and returned to the relative comfort of the house. She dropped them on the steps by the front door, and left the broken glass with little care to who would step on it.
Back up the main stairs, past Nicky's bedroom, past Olaf's room to the small, dark bathroom she had claimed as her own years before. She felt along the wall until she found the doorknob. The light was broken, or there wasn't one, which made it impossible to find. Violet had never bothered to fix it. The darkness kept Olaf and some of his less than hygienic troupe members from finding it, or using it. Years ago, it had made Violet nervous, now she welcomed the solitude. It was dark and claustrophobic, hardly more than a shower, with funny smelling carpet and a broken mirror.
A painting of two menacing looking children oversaw the entire room. Violet made a face. She still hated the decor.
Violet stripped off her damp clothes and stepped into the shower.
The water was hot for once, it fell over her hair and cascaded down her back in a waterfall. Violet sighed with relief. The feeling in her fingers and toes was beginning to return.
I'm actually enjoying a shower, for once. Alone.
Feeling guilty, Violet quickly shut off the water.
She walked back to her bedroom dripping wet and stood in front of the mirror as she did every morning, regarding her own reflection. Violet rested her hand on her stomach, long since recovered from her last pregnancy.
You wouldn't even be able to tell I had a baby once.
She frowned.
Don't even second guess yourself. You did the right thing.
Did I? Would Nicky have been better off being raised by Esme Squalor and her simpering little house-husband?
Was I being selfish?
I could rescue him. But what would we live on?
Whatever schemes Olaf planned, the money was never enough to live comfortably, not really. An enormous mansion was no better than a studio apartment if there was no heat in the winter. A crib of mahogany was useless when the baby in it screamed day and night from the pain of countless untreated colds and ear infections.
Now even that is gone. Now I really do have nothing.
Violet spread the contents of her jewelry box over the dresser. She had a collection any woman would envy, and she had never worn any of it, not the silver bracelets, not the matching silver hair combs, not even the sapphire earrings that Olaf had presented her with the year before. They reminded her too much of tears. But they were probably worth something. She bit her lip, and forced them back through her healed over piercings. The pain was momentarily dizzying, and as Violet released her ear, she realized her fingertips were wet with blood.
Her decision was made.
Her mission was without question.
Violet was going to retrieve her son.
She was going to fight.
First stop?
Aberrant Avenue.
Violet Baudelaire was going to destroy VFD.